Cited from Fadil Kajtazis “Dosja, Ideologjia Serbe e Gjenocidit”, 2025, pp. 59-63.

“Brocard further specifies that for the sake of power, Uroš III Dečanski “strangled with his own hands his underage son” and describes the macabre cruelty with which he also killed his brother, Constantine: “…and he killed him with unheard-of cruelty; indeed, he laid him upon a tree trunk and nailed him through the arms and thighs, then split him in two from the head down to the middle of the body.

Having first portrayed Dušan, Brocard says: “If anyone wishes to know about the man who now reigns in Rascia… he equals and surpasses his predecessors in cruelty and unheard-of wickedness in deeds, though perhaps not in intent. Indeed, his father (Uroš III Dečanski, F.K), of whom it has been said that he was an intriguer, a usurper, a bastard, cruel, a tyrant, a patricide, a fratricide and, insofar as it was possible, even a deicide—this man seized him, bound him, imprisoned him and, moreover, cruelly murdered him.”

Source: Guillelmus ADAE – Brocardus, “Directorium ad passagium faciendum – Historiens des croisades – Documents arméniens”, Tome second, Paris, Imprimerie nationale, MDCCCCVI, (1906), p, 438

Serbs as servants of Byzantium

“The Serbian ethnic differentiation and political consolidation.

The beginnings of the ethnic differentiation of Serbs from other Slavs and of political consolidation in the Dardanian areas are defined by Yugoslav historiography as follows: “The path of formation of the Serbian state, as with other southern Slavs, is similar, but a little slower. It is first mentioned in 822, in a Franciscan yearbook. Its development is accompanied by the strengthening of tribal ties.

The Serbian tribal bond, in all likelihood, has included from the Dalmatian coast, in the south, to Cetinje and Raška and in Central Bosnia. In this area, in the 9th century, several independent regions are created, of which Raška becomes the nucleus of the Serbian state. The Serbian prince Vlastimir is the first prince clearly identified by history”… from this time, “the name Serbian begins to spread to neighboring areas, as a common name of Slavic groups”.

Regarding the differentiation from other Slavic tribes and the ethnonym “Serb”, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (905-959), while dealing with the topic “On the settlement of Serbs in the provinces of Dalmatia”, left a note, where he says: “Serbs (“Servi”, in the quote of D. Kasic, F. K.) in the Byzantine language are called “slaves”, hence, according to the tradition of the people, the shoes of slaves are called “servila” and the poor and worthless shoes they wear are called “Xervulians”. The Serbs received this name because they submitted to the Byzantine emperor”.

Niketas Honiatius (date of birth unknown, died 1150), secretary of Emperor Isaac II (1185-1195), justifies this negative form of description of the Serbs, writing, among other things: “These, then (Serbs), when the affairs of the emperor’s power (referring to Emperor Manuel Comeni 1143-1180, F. K.) were in peace, they made gestures and pretended to be friends and expressed themselves in opposition to what they hid in the depths of their hearts”.

With the epithet of the infidel, the Serbs – the Russians, are also considered on the other side of Christianity, in the West. A description of this, in 1332, is believed to have been left by the French bishop Brocard (Guillelmus ADAE – Brocardus, died 1341). He stayed in this region during the period 1324-1341 and in the treatise written for the King of France Philip VI, he includes the seven years of his reign.

Stefan Dečanski – Uroshi III (king 1321-1331) and one year of Stefan Dušan (king from 1331-1345 and emperor from 1346-1355). Brocard, in this treatise, advises the king not to enter into an alliance with the king of Raska, Dušan, because his genealogical line was incriminated in monstrous crimes in the struggle for power and, as such, should not be trusted.

In fact, it is seen that Brocard has well-founded source information, since this struggle was long and had its beginnings in the birth of the Nemanjić dynasty, which is evidenced by Stefan Përvoveqani (Stefan Nemanja II, 1166-1227). In his biography of his father Stefan Nemanja (1114-1199, after 1196, Monk Simeon, after 1200, Saint Simeon Nemanja), he recounts that the struggle for power had begun while the family was still in Ribnica: “… his parents (Nemanja’s father and Pervovenqan’s grandfather, F.K.), their brothers seized the land. And because of the unrest, he was forced to leave his birthplace, called Diocletian”.

Brocardus portrayal of Stefan Dusan

Having first portrayed Dušan, Brocard says: “If anyone wishes to know about the man who now reigns in Rascia… he equals and surpasses his predecessors in cruelty and unheard-of wickedness in deeds, though perhaps not in intent. Indeed, his father (Uroš III Dečanski, F.K), of whom it has been said that he was an intriguer, a usurper, a bastard, cruel, a tyrant, a patricide, a fratricide and, insofar as it was possible, even a deicide—this man seized him, bound him, imprisoned him and, moreover, cruelly murdered him.”

Brocard further specifies that for the sake of power, Uroš III Dečanski “strangled with his own hands his underage son” and describes the macabre cruelty with which he also killed his brother, Constantine: “…and he killed him with unheard-of cruelty; indeed, he laid him upon a tree trunk and nailed him through the arms and thighs, then split him in two from the head down to the middle of the body.”.

From all this, he draws his conclusion and gives advice to the king: “Thus, my lord king, I describe the aforementioned emperor (of Rascia, F.K), the king and their houses, as all the East knows them, and as I have learned to a great extent from experience. Now therefore, let your prudent Council judge whether trust can be placed in the promises, oaths, and loyalty of these deranged people, … who destroy their parents, who spare not their sons, who kill their brothers, who ruin and confuse their own race; it is known that they are as strangers to their own blood, enemies to friends, friends to enemies, intriguers with those who …”

Bokard, among other things, specifies that for power purposes, Uroš III Dečanski “strangled his infant son with his own hands” and describes the macabre cruelty with which he also killed his brother, Constantine: “… and killed him with unheard-of cruelty; in fact, he laid him on a tree trunk and nailed him to his arms and thighs, then cut him in two from the head to the middle of the body”.

From all this, he comes to a conclusion and gives advice to the king:

“Thus, my lord king, I describe the aforementioned emperor (Raška, F.K), the king and their houses, as the whole East knows them, and as I have learned to a great extent from experience. Now, therefore, let your prudent Council judge, whether the promises, oaths and loyalty of these perverse people can be trusted, … who destroy parents, who do not spare children, who kill their brothers, who destroy and confuse their race; it is known that they are like strangers to their own blood, enemies to friends, friends to enemies, intriguers with those who they want, traitors of their helpers, oppressors of their subjects, violators of other people’s rights, cruel murderers of their masters”.

Both the ethnonym “Serb” and the differentiation of the Serbian ethnicity from other southern Slavs have a pronounced ambiguity, since the sources of the time present it vaguely. In most of the Byzantine chronicles, which are sources for the Middle Ages, the Serbs are identified as “tribal”, which is followed up to the last chronicles, where Laonik Halkokondili (1430-1470) calls Stefan Dushan “king of the tribes”, and the despot Gjergj Branković (1377-1456) “chief of the tribes”.

All this may have been influenced by the geographical area of ​​the tribes, where this Slavic ethnicity was differencia-forma, which as we have seen, Cvijić characterizes as an amalgam of “Latinized Illyrians – Vlachs”. This mixture is confirmed by Stefan Përvoveqan who in the “Žica Inscriptions”, dating from around 1219, lists numerous Vlach families under the jurisdiction of this monastery, as well as a “Vlach County”.

Serbian sources for the ethnonym “Serb” say that it means “… of cousins, relatives, people… group of people who have blood and spiritual ties”. According to the Serbian writer, politician and diplomat, academician Lubomir Nenadović (1826-1895), this ethnonym is formed from “rab, which means man, sorab, which means of a brotherhood”, while, for this, Stojan Protić quotes Slovak historian and ethnographer, P. J. Shafarik, who says that “the oldest names for the Slavic peoples are: Vindi and Serbi.

The first name is used by foreigners, especially Germans, while the second name is used by the locals, by which the Slavs themselves were called”144. According to a report that Pjetër Bogdan sent to Cardinal Cibo on March 24, 1684 (Alderano Cibo 1613-1700), “serv” was transformed into “serb” after 1414: “Serbia populærče Servia, because that is what the populations call it, it is what, in the Council of Constance, is called “Sarbi, ancient Dardania”.

Also, “some think that the name Serbian has only implied religious meaning, as a synonym for Orthodoxy”. Another Yugoslav information determines the time of the beginning and duration of the settlement of the Slavs in the “Balkan Peninsula at the beginning of the 7th-11th century”, and adding that “at this time (12th century, BC) the Serbs from Raška begin to penetrate Kosovo”.

This time coincides with the consolidation of the Raška county, which around 1158 had moved its center from Zeta to Ras, while Stefan Nemanja “in the year 1166, was named the great county of Raška”. During his reign, after 1183, sporadic incursions into the areas Illyrian-Dardanian territories under Byzantium, where he, taking advantage of the internal turmoil in Byzantium, begins to conquer the coastal areas and cities of today’s Montenegro, Northern Albania and Kosovo, as well as Southern Serbia.

Stefan Përvovenqani in his biography of his father Stefan Nemanjën describes “the names of the cities that our enlightened Simeon the Blessed destroyed” in the part of the Illyrian-Dardanian territories, inhabited by the local population, mostly Arbëro, which were mainly under Byzantine jurisdiction, which included: Kotor, Tivari, Ulqin, the area of ​​Mbishkodra with the lake: “the city of Danja, the city of Sardonic (?) Drivast (must be Drishti, F. K), the city of Rozafa called Shkodër (Skadar) Spaçi, (Svač), Ulcinj and the famous city of Tivar (Bar), while in the Northeast and South, “Leshak, Prizren, Lipjan, Morava (South, F.K) and the so-called Vranja”, the upper reaches of the Vardar, including “Skopje and in the north the famous city of Niš”. Përvovenqani further explains that this invasion was brutal: “… These cities were destroyed to the ground, not a stone was left on top of a stone that was not demolished”.

But, “until Nemanja’s action, Serbia (Rashk F.K) did not go beyond Morava (Western, F. K.); in the north it did not go beyond Rudnik, and in the southeast it did not go further than Peja and Gjakova… None of the fertile lowlands, nor Kosovo, nor Morava (Southern, F. K.), nor Dukagjini, nor Maçva were completely under Serbian power”.

The borders of this territory before Nemanja’s expansion are presented to us in a more specific way in a textbook on the history of the Serbian church, which included the following parts: “…the course of the Lima River, of the Upper Drina with Piva and Tara, the Ibar Valley and the upper course of the Western Morava”.

The expansion from Rashka towards the south is confirmed by the avowed anti-Albanian, academician Vasa Čubrillović. In this regard, in his infamous program, “The Expulsion of the Albanians”, he says: “The greatest power of Serbian expansion from the beginning of the creation of the first Serbian state onwards, since the 9th century, has always been based on the continuity of this expansion, as well as on the expansion of the territories of old Raška in all directions, including their expansion towards the south”, where: “A part of the territory of this country (Albania, F. K.) was annexed to the state of Raška during the reign of Stefan Nemanja”.

It should be emphasized that the conquest of these territories was temporary in nature, as Nemanja and the descendants of his dynasty sometimes conquered them and sometimes lost them and were forced to return them to Byzantium, entering into a vassalage relationship with it. An example of this is “when in 1172 the emperor (Manuel I Komnenos 1143 – 1180) entered Serbia (Raška F.K) and … Nemanja was forced to manifest his submission in the same theatrical way … and participated as a defeated rebel in the emperor’s triumphal entry into Constantinople”.

Finally, the territory of what was called Dardania – today’s Kosovo, southern Serbia, northern Macedonia, falls under the occupation and jurisdiction of Raška “in 1282, when Stefan Uroš II Milutin (reigned 1282-1321) invaded Macedonia … and captured the important city of Skopje, which the Byzantines never recaptured”.

The expansion of the Raška County has been interpreted by contemporary and later authors as part of the internal crises of the Byzantine Empire and the political developments surrounding it, mainly as a result of the clash between the Catholic Church and the Byzantine Orthodox Church.

This situation culminated in the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204), when the crusaders, who had initially set out for the Holy Land, temporarily occupied Constantinople and heavily plundered it. Add to this the claims to the imperial crown between Andronicus II Palaiologos (1259–1332) and Andronicus III (1297–1341), accompanied by a series of civil wars, which shattered the empire and paved the way for the expansion of Raška.

These expansions into the territories under Byzantine rule, inhabited mainly by Arbëror-Albanians, besides being accompanied by brutality and “destruction to the foundation” of the conquered cities, did not mark any noticeable developments in the cultural, administrative or urban infrastructure fields. Monasteries and churches were built, which, more than spiritual institutions, served as state apparatuses to subjugate the population in the conquered territories and to collect taxes from them.

A description of the developmental character of the Kingdom of Raska (Regno Rassie), at the height of its expansion, has been made by Brocard. According to him: “This kingdom has few or almost no castles or fortified places, but it is all with village houses, without ditches and without walls at all. The buildings and palaces, both of the king and of the other nobles, are made of straw and wood. I have never seen there any palace or house of stone or mud brick, except in the cities of the Latins on the coast”.

Subsequently, during the reign of Stefan Dushan, the conquests of Raška advance into Albanian territories, up to Ohrid and, in the coastal area, up to Vlora. This Albanian ethnic space, sometimes wider and sometimes narrower, remains occupied for about 100 years, namely until 1389, when the Ottoman Empire defeated the Balkan coalition in the Battle of Kosovo and after 1455, when it is finally brought under its jurisdiction.”

Reference

Fadil Kajtazi “Dosja, Ideologjia Serbe e Gjenocidit”, 2025, pp. 59-63.